Monday, April 30, 2018

Salman Rushdie’s Haroun
and the Sea of Stories stands out as a calm and complacent piece of literature
among the author’s normal social controversies. Written more for children, but
enjoyable by adults, the piece centers on a young man named Haroun. Haroun’s
father Rashid stands as a storyteller in a sad city (unnamed) located in an
unknown country that most likely stands as India. Yet when Haroun’s mother
walks out on the family, life is thrown into turmoil and his farther loses the
gift of story. It is here, when Iff, a water genie, appears to disconnect Rashid’s
story stream, that the pair encounter a whimsical journey to what amounts to
imagination land. Here, stories flow, processes too complicated to explain
control all, and the populace is under attack by shadows attempting to reverse
the stories and render everything, well normal.

Within these constraints, Haroun experiences a classic hero’s
journey. Full of joy, full of classical archetypes, Rushdie’s 1991 novel flows
rapidly and is worth the time for any fan of the talented author.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Rabindranath Tagore’s Broken
Ties, posits a spiritual journey through a life that enlightens one to many
of the nuances of Indian culture from the early twentieth century. Fashioned
around the life of Satish, a man torn between his atheist uncle, his Hindu
father, a Swami he will follow in his later years, and the love of the unrequited
love of the widowed Damini, we see rise and fall of both confidence and
spiritualism within a man. While meandering, the novel classically tracks the
growth of Satish, his life, and more importantly, those around him. For Satish
is a focus in a text he does not narrate and rarely directly acts upon. Instead
we see his actions, his youth as a beloved (and begrieved) atheist, his wayward
years with the Swami, and his final surrender to the world as Damini calls for
his love. A quick read and didactic in nature, Tagore splashes the page with
cultural splendor that reaches far beyond the man’s plight.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Katy Bowman’s Movement
Matters explores human life from a unique, functional perspective. Maybe that
sentence does not do the collection of essays full justice, but the text is
hard to fully quantify while a pleasure to read. Bowman invokes thought,
promotes stacking, and encourages personal exploration. She wants you to
simplify life, to break down barriers, and to confront the neat little boxes we
have created in a new way. Should life be a rolling collection of allocated
time or can fitness and food and family overlap? Can one meditate while walking
with their family? How can we simplify our lives while moving or move to
simplify our lives? Can cooking be fun? Yes, she doesn’t really explore the
last topic, but when she dissects food, specifically the human/energy cost of
food, you want to know and understand.

At times Bowman discusses the need for humans to move and to
move functionally, at others she applies the same principles to food, but at
almost all times, she works to examine common issues from a unique perspective.
Broken into main topics and each thought provoking, anyone into fitness and
anyone into the human will enjoy the read.